"Please remember that I am not the same person. I will esteem it a great favor if you will leave the man you saw at that time in the limbo of the past--the farther off the better." "You were rather distant then," Ida remarked with a piquant smile. "But am I now? Answer me that," he said so eagerly that she was again mentally enraged at her tell-tale color, and she said hastily: "But where am I to find the ambrosia and nectar that you will expect this evening?" "Any market can furnish the crude materials. It is the touch of the hostess that transmutes them." "Alas," said Ida, "I never learned how to cook. If I should prepare your dinner, you would have an awful mood to-morrow, and probably send for the doctor." "I would need a nurse more than a doctor." "I know of an ancient woman--a perfect Mrs. Harris," said Ida, gleefully. "Wouldn't you come and see me if I were very ill?" "I might call at the door and ask how you were," she replied, hesitatingly. "Now, Miss Ida, the undertaker would do as much as that." "Our motives might differ just a little," she said, dropping her eyes. "Well," said the artist, laughing, "if you will prepare the dinner, I'll risk undertaker, ancient woman, and all, rather than spend such another long stupid evening as I did last night. I expected to meet you at the concert garden again." "That's strange," she said. "I should say rather that I hoped to meet you and your father there. Would you have gone if I had asked you?" "I might." "I'll set that down as one of the lost opportunities of life." "Why didn't you listen to the music?" "Well, I didn't. I thought I'd inflict my stupidity on you for awhile, and came as far as your doorsteps before I remembered that I had not been invited; so you see what a narrow escape you had." In spite of herself Ida could not help appearing disappointed as she said, a little reproachfully, "Would a friend have waited for a formal invitation?" "A friend did," replied Van Berg regretfully; "but he won't again." "I'm not so sure about that; my music must have frightened you away." "I listened until I feared the police might think I had designs against the house. I didn't know you were a musician. Miss Mayhew, I'm always finding out something new about you, and I'm going to ask you this evening to sing again for me a ballad the melody of which reminded me of a running brook. It took hold on my fancy and has been running in my head ever since." "Oh, you won't like that; it's a silly, sentimental little thing. I don't wonder you paused and retreated." "Spare me, Miss Ida; I already feel that it was a faint-hearted retreat, in which I suffered serious loss. I have accounted for myself since we parted; how did YOU spend the time? Of course you yawned over your morning's fatigue, and took a long nap." "Indeed I did not sleep a wink. Why should I be any more indolent than yourself? I read most of the afternoon, and drummed on the piano in the evening."